"Why didn"t you people blow Merlin up?" Conn asked.

"We"d built it; we"d worked with it. It was part of us, and we were part of it. We couldn"t. Besides, there was a chance that it might survive the Federation; when a new civilization arose, it would be useful. We just sealed it. There were fewer than a hundred of us who knew about it. We all took an oath of secrecy. We spent the rest of our lives trying to suppress any mention of Merlin or the Merlin Project. You have no idea how shocked both General Travis and I were when you told us that the story was still current here on Poictesme.

And when we found that you"d been getting into the records of the Third Force, I took the next ship I could, a miserable little freighter, and when I landed and found out what was happening, I contacted Murchison and scared the life out of him with stories about a secessionist conspiracy. All this Armageddonist, Human Supremacy, Merlin-is-the-Devil, stuff that"s been going on was started by Murchison. And he succeeded in scaring Vyckhoven with the Cybernarchists, too."

"This computation on the future of the Federation is still in the back-work file?" Conn asked.

Shanlee nodded. "We were criminally reckless; I can see that, now. Let me beg, again, that you destroy the whole thing."

"We"ll have to talk it over among ourselves," Judge Ledue said. "The five of us, here, cannot presume to speak for everybody. We will, of course, have to keep you confined; I hope you will understand that we cannot accept your parole."

"Is there anything you want in the meantime?" Conn asked.

"I would like something to smoke, and some clothes," General Shanlee said. "And a shave and a haircut."

XXI

All through the night, a shifting blaze of many-colored light rose and dimmed the stars above the mesa. They stared in awe, marveling at the energy that was pouring out of the converters into a tiny spot that inched its way around the collapsium shielding. It must have been visible for hundreds of miles; it was, for there was a new flood of rumors circulating in Storisende and repeated and denied by the newscasts, now running continuously. Merlin had been found. Merlin had been blown up by Government troops. Merlin was being transported to Storisende to be installed as arbiter of the Government. Merlin the Monster was destroying the planet. Merlin the Devil was unchained.

Conn and Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton and Judge Ledue and Tom Brangwyn cl.u.s.tered together, talking in whispers. They had told n.o.body, yet, of the interview with Shanlee.

"You think it would make all that trouble?" Kellton was asking anxiously, hoping that the others would convince him that it wouldn"t.

"Maybe we had better destroy it," Judge Ledue faltered. "You see what it"s done already; the whole planet"s in anarchy. If we let this go on...."

"We can"t decide anything like that, just the five of us," Brangwyn was insisting. "We"ll have to get the others together and see what they think. We have no right to make any decision like this for them."

"They"re no more able to make the decision than we are," Conn said.

"But we"ve got to; they have a right to know...."

"If you decide to destroy Merlin, you"ll have to decide to kill me, first," Kurt Fawzi said, his voice deadly calm. "You won"t do it while I"m alive."

"But, Kurt," Ledue expostulated. "You know why these people here at Storisende are rioting? It"s because they"ve lost hope, because they"re afraid and desperate. The Terran Federation is something everybody feels they have to have, for peace and order and welfare. If people thought it was breaking up, they"d be desperate, too. They"d do the same insane things these people here on this planet are doing.

General Shanlee was right. Don"t destroy the hope that keeps them sane."

"We don"t need to do that," Kurt Fawzi argued. "We can use Merlin to solve our own problems; we don"t need to tell the whole Federation what"s going to happen in two hundred years."

"It would get out; it couldn"t help getting out," Ledue said.

"Let"s not try to decide it ourselves," Conn said. "Let"s get Merlin into operation, and run a computation on it."

"You mean, ask Merlin to tell us whether it ought to be destroyed or not?" Ledue asked incredulously. "Let Merlin put itself on trial, and sentence itself to destruction?"

"Merlin is a computer; computers deal only in facts. Computers are machines; they have no sense of self-preservation. If Merlin ought to be destroyed, Merlin will tell us so."

"You willing to leave it up to Merlin, Kurt?" Tom Brangwyn asked.

Fawzi gulped. "Yes. If Merlin says we ought to, we"ll have to do it."

Toward noon, a telecast went out from Koshchei, on a dozen different wave-lengths. Conn, half asleep in a chair in the commander-in-chief"s office, saw Simon Macquarte, the young mathematics professor from Storisende College who had become one of the leaders of the colony, appear in the screen. The next moment, he was fully awake, shocked by Macquarte"s words:

"This is not a threat; this is a solemn, even a prayerful, warning. We do not want to use genocidal weapons of ma.s.s destruction against the world of our birth. But whether we do or not rests solely with you.

"We came here with a dream of a better world, a world of happiness and plenty for all. We have been working, on Koshchei, to build such a world on Poictesme. Now you are smashing that dream. When it is gone, we will have nothing to live for--except revenge. And we will take that revenge, make no mistake.

"We have the weapons with which to take it. Remember, this was a Federation naval base and naval a.r.s.enal during the War. Here the Federation Navy built their super-missiles, the missiles which devastated Ashmodai, and Belphegor, and Baphomet, and hundreds of these weapons are here. We have them, ready for launching. Once they are launched, with the robo-pilots set for targets on Poictesme, you will have a hundred and sixty hours, at the most, to live.

"We will launch them immediately if there is another attack made upon Force Command Duplicate HQ, or upon Interplanetary Building in Storisende, or if Rodney Maxwell is killed, no matter by whom or under what circ.u.mstances.

"We beg you, earnestly and prayerfully, not to force us to do this dreadful thing. We speak to each one of you, for each one of you holds the fate of the planet in his own hands."

The image faded from the screen. As it did, Conn was looking from one to another of the people in the room with him. All were dumbfounded, most of them frightened.

"They wouldn"t do it, would they?" Lorenzo Menardes was asking. "Conn, you know those people. They wouldn"t really?"

"Don"t depend on it, Lorenzo," Klem Zareff said. "It"s hard for a lot of people to shoot somebody ten feet away with a pistol. But just sending off a missile; that"s nothing but setting a lot of dials and then pushing a b.u.t.ton."

"I"m not worrying about whether they"d do it or not," Conn said. "What I"m worrying about is how many people will believe they will."

Apparently a good many people did. Zareff"s combat vehicles began reporting a cessation of fighting. The newscasts, repeating the ultimatum from Koshchei, told of fewer and fewer disorders in the city or elsewhere; by midafternoon, the rioting had stopped.

By that time, too, Rodney Maxwell was on-screen. He was, Conn noticed, wearing his pistols again.

"What happened?" he asked. "They let you out on bail?"

Maxwell shook his head. "Charges dismissed; they didn"t have anything to charge me with in the first place. But they haven"t let me out yet."

"You"re wearing your guns."

"Yes, but they still have me penned up here at the Executive Palace; they"re practically keeping me in the safe. I wish our people on Koshchei hadn"t mentioned me in their ultimatum; Jake Vyckhoven"s afraid to let me run around loose for fear some lunatic shoots me and starts the planetbusters coming in. Jake did one good thing, though.

He ordered the Stock Exchange closed, and declared a five-day bank holiday. By that time, you ought to have Merlin opened and working, and then the market"ll be safe."

Conn simply replied, "I hope so." There was no telling what kind of taps there might be on the screen his father was using; he couldn"t risk telling him about Shanlee, or about the last computation which Merlin had made. "If we send the _Lester Dawes_ in, do you think you might talk them into letting you come out here?"

"I can try."

Flora arrived at Force Command that afternoon.

"I would have come sooner," she said, "but Mother"s had a complete collapse. It happened last evening; she"s in the hospital. I was with her until just an hour and a half ago. She"s still unconscious."

"You mean she"s in danger?"

"I don"t know. They think she"s all right, except for the shock. It was the Travis statement that did it."